


Stardust(in you and in me)

by blackdragonhellfire



Series: Heroes and Gods, Gods and Monsters [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Angst, Brother-Sister Relationships, Gen, Jason isn't a Demigod but he can see a little bit through the mist, OOC characters?, backstory to come
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 15:43:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19254211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackdragonhellfire/pseuds/blackdragonhellfire
Summary: Thalia Grace returns to Gotham to visit an old friend. Or, rather, his grave.





	Stardust(in you and in me)

Gotham City.

Thalia hadn’t been here ever since the very beginning of the war with Kronos, when Luke was just barely possessed and everything was just going to hell. And Gotham had taken the brunt of it, despite its mostly mortal population. 

Monsters had long since overrun the town, both human and mythological. She would know. She had met both.

But Thalia had also met heroes - both human and demigod - that were willing to fight, that were willing to persevere and do their best to help the places and people they loved. And many of them had died for it, young and tragic and disfigured from their burdens. 

But one death stood out to her, in this smoggy city. The death of as mortal boy born and raised in this hell, who had only been trying to prove himself upon his death.

(Jason Todd never needed to prove himself to her. He already had.)

Thalia looked up at the smoggy skies.

It had been too long since she had last visited him.

* * *

“Why are you even visiting this guy’s grave anyway?”

A man in a Red Hoodie loomed above her sitting form, looking down at the gravestone below him. The shadows obscured his face, but not the intensity of his gaze.

“What’s it to you?” she retorted. Why should he care? He didn’t know her.

The guy in the Red Hoodie kneeled down next to her, black strands of hair falling into his shadowed face.

He traced the epitaph with two fingers, as if he knew it by touch alone.

 _A loving son_ , it said.

And Jason had been loving. Thalia remembered him to be passionate about everything in life, attacking it with a zeal and vigor that only some people who had been through what he had would have.

“Dunno. Just thought that most girls would go after the Waynes that were alive, not the dead ones.”

Thalia scoffed.

“I’m not after any man. I’m just visiting an old friend, that’s all.”

“Oh?”

The man got off his haunches, and sat own the grass next to her.

“Must be pretty shitty then, being friends with a guy that was stupid enough to get himself blown up.”

“Yeah, that was pretty stupid of him,” she croaked, “But he was a great friend.”

The man idly played with the flower on Jason’s grave. Thalia looked a little closer at it, and noticed it wasn’t the same one that was there when she visited Jason’s grave for the first time, only a year ago. But it didn’t cross her mind that anything was particularly _off_ about it.  

“You sure about that? Because this guy just went and died on you, you know.”

Thalia glared at him.

“What would you know about that? You probably didn’t even know him!”

“I know him better than you think.” he said curtly, his face unreadable under the hood. “And I know he was an idiot to not have savored what he left behind.”

“He was an idiot,” Thalia whispered, “He always was. But he was loyal, and stubborn, and able to fight off guys three times his size without batting an eye. He was amazing. And I wish he could have known that before he died trying to prove himself.”

“Or, maybe he should’ve stayed dead.”

“What do you mean by that?”

She could feel the smirk the man was giving her. 

“What do you think I mean?”

“I don’t really know…”

And then it hit her.

The man next to her had black hair. Jason had black hair. The man next to her was in a red hoodie.

Jason had always loved the color red.

“Jason? Is that you?”

* * *

The boy, no, the man in front of her, stood up and then took off his hood.

A familiar face greeted her, but a little more lean, having lost some of the boyish fat that had been there before he passed. But otherwise, despite the white streak in his hair…

It was definitely Jason.

“In the flesh, Thals,” Jason replied, smirking.

Gods, he was older than her now. He had actually made it to sixteen.

Thalia almost couldn’t believe it.

“But…”

“I was dead?” He shot back, “Yup. I was.”

Thalia didn’t respond. She just stared at him, looking him over as if she didn’t really believe he was alive.

Jason just stood there, waiting for her to process what had happened.

But then she lurched forward, and punched him squarely in the jaw.

Jason recoiled from the force, and fell back, clutching his face.

“So, this is how you greet me, after I die?”  
  
“You… you. Freaking. Idiot!”

“Huh?”

“First off, you disregard my advice and die. Which definitely didn’t weigh down on my conscience for years, thank you very much. And then, you come back, like nothing’s wrong, and no one was mourning you! What. The. Fuck!”

“Like people were actually mourning me?”

Jason stepped towards Thalia, looming over her in a way that maybe her Father would have. She’d never would have imagined Jason doing that. She’d never would have imagined Jason being so tall…

She never would have imagined Jason being alive.

“You know what that fucker Bruce did after I died?” he hissed.

“Cried over your body? Buried your coffin? Mourned you-”

“No. That fucker just ups and replaces me! Like he never had me as a son, or a partner. He didn’t even bother trying to avenge my death. He just fucking trooped on, like I never existed!”

“I’m sure he missed you, Jason. I know I -”

“How the hell would you know anything! Huh? You weren’t _there_ . You haven’t heard the things Bruce has said about me to my new _replacement,_ ” he spat out the word like it was poison, “that while Dickhead at least was something, I was only full of rage. That I was a good soldier, a good partner, and not even his son! How the hell would you know how that feels, huh?”

“I know, Jason. Believe me, I know-”

“Sure you do!”

“I know, alright?”

Thalia took a deep breath.  

“Neither of my parents was especially good to me. Even my almighty father. I know for certain that my own mother probably didn’t miss me after I ran away from home. So don’t go preaching to me about how I don’t know things and that you’re the only one with these problems!”

Jason scoffed.

“You weren’t ever close with your parents, though.”

“So what? I was close to Luke before he betrayed me.”

“That wasn’t like your own father betraying you.”

“No. It was like my brother had betrayed me, Jason. My best friend. And I think that that might be even worse.”

She sighed.

“I know that it feels strange, coming back after everyone thinks you’re dead only to see how everything has changed, and that adjusting is so, so hard. I’ve been in the same exact place as you. Trust me.”

Jason scoffed, and looked away.

“Sure you have, Thals. Sure.”

Thalia glared at him.

“Did I tell you the story of how I became a pine tree for a few years?”

Jason raised his eyebrows.

“Nope. I have heard the one about the crazy guy in the haunted house with curtains that ate people though.”

Thalia rolled her eyes.

“I know. But… anyway,”

Thalia took a deep breath. She had never told the story of her “death” to anyone. Not even her closest lieutenants, or her brother. But here she was, telling it to the only person who would understand living and dying and coming back again. 

“When Luke and Annabeth and I were all travelling together," she said, before she lost the courage to tell her story, "We were encountered by this satyr named Grover who had promised to lead us all to the Demigod Camp. Well, after that… he took a few wrong turns, and we kept getting more and more monsters on our tails, and it got so bad that we were practically swarmed by them. We had just managed to get into Camp when I got bitten pretty badly by a pack of hellhounds. And that wasn’t the worst of it, since I had been collecting injuries all day. Probably enough to kill me. But the monsters were still coming, so I had to stay strong. I had to fight.

“But... that wasn’t enough. The injuries took their toll, and the monsters just kept coming. And I couldn’t go anymore, you know?”

Jason nodded solemnly.

“I know what you mean.”

“My Father saw me there, on that hill, about to die, and took pity on me. So instead of leaving me to die there, he turned me into a tree to preserve my life, even if he couldn’t truly save me.”

Jason let out a low whistle.

“Wow.”

Thalia nodded.

“Yeah,” she said, looking down at her feet.

“Like damn,” Jason said, “That sounds like something straight out of the Metamorphoses or somethin', you know.”

Thalia laughed bitterly.

“It probably was. Gods aren’t exactly original.”

The man beside Thalia looked at her, meeting her electric blue eyes with his bluish-green.

She never thought she’d see those eyes again.

“You know, that probably explains a lot. Like how we’re both here.”

“I guess.”

She turned to look at him back.

“You know, I just - I just thought that despite all the people the Doors of Death would bring back to life, it would never, ever bring you back. I mean, I - I guess it’s possible. You’ve always been full of surprises. ”

Jason looked confused.

"Doors of Death?"

"The Barrier to the Underworld."

"Oh. "

"Yeah."

Jason sighed.

"Well that explains a lot, actually. But, sadly, it didn't exactly do a great job of restoring my sanity..."

Thalia nodded in understanding. The man who had killed him must have done quite a number on him for him to come back so damaged, she thought sadly, but she wouldn't push him too hard for details. It was his business and his alone.

But that didn't mean she wouldn't ask other questions. 

"How did you get it back, then?" she asked.

Jason shook his head. 

"Don't wanna talk about it."

"Ok," she responded. Everyone had things they didn't want to talk about in the hero business. 

Jason looked at her again.

“So. What are you doing back in smoggy old Gotham, instead of those woods your boss loves so much?”

“I’ve got a mission.”

“Classified?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Eh. I’ve got one of my own I’ve got to do, so I can’t really talk.”

“Oh.”

Jason shrugged, and sat next to her once again.

“But I’ve got enough time to catch up with an old friend before doing it,” he continued. “What’s been going on in the Monster World lately?”

“Too much. So while you were dead, Kronos was finally defeated.”

“Sweet.”

“Not really. But after that, his mother decided to get vengeance for his fall and then…”

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this was pretty random. 
> 
> Please leave Kudos and Comments!


End file.
